Flying Island

Walking the Highway Back Into Town by James Owens                  --Michigan City, Indiana., July, 2015 Insects unstitch bodies in the weeds: a possum on its back, the pads of its feet turned up pink, an infant's supplicant palms; a fresher possum, draped with a fertile tangle of black and green flies; a raccoon simplified by heat and time to a tattered pelt and a snarl twisted to bite the tires that killed it. Drivers honk or yell, not to warn but telling the happy news that they are riding --- traffic from the casino that simmers with money like fortunate blood --- while others trudge in sweat and mosquitoes, among the slain, displaced and liable to damage. Then the poor streets. Young men glare, astonished by their own rage. Sticky children plague a sulking, blotch-faced woman who clouts one from a chipped porch. The white-haired, drunken man spi...

The First Will Be Last by Scott Hensley The city's final statement is itself. It cannot see, or conceive, Of anything beyond its bounds. And so, it's not yet thought of its finest possibility: Its slow and sure descent Toward the ground.  Bio: Scott Hensley is an Indianapolis native and resident. He and his wife, Erica, own and operate a small farm on the city's southeast side.

How Many Times? by Norbert Krapf How many times does the touch of other people stay with us   in the tissue of our flesh, as memory that comes alive, return when another touch comes calling to draw us out of where we are back into another time or place: that priest who went wrong in what he did because he needed something he knew he should not take but could not stop himself from having, maybe a relative who wanted to make us feel good about ourselves and did know where to stop, that first girl who put a fingertip on the place that rose with a thrill in response to the tingling electricity of her warm and lush sensuality? All still alive in us, decades later, no matter how much our flesh shifts and declines, still present in how our spirit rises and falls. Bio: Norbert Krapf, former Indiana Poet Laureate, is a Jasper, Indiana, native who lives in downtown Indianapolis. His most recent books are Catholic Boy Blues ...

How to Be a Cop’s Wife by Lindsey Warner           1. Stay to the side as thick boots pound through rooms bullet clicks into chamber radio blares “42- Edward-29 copy.” Pray everything is charged no keys are lost car battery isn’t dead shirt was white enough.                    2. Stand for your goodbye kiss check the pins are all on straight breathe out as tires squeal around the corner. In the evening, listen to faraway sirens as you fold clothes. Slide open a drawer and hear bullets click into each other, run your fingers under extra silver buttons and loose change smell the acrid stench of metal polish. There. The sock’s match hidden beneath a box of condoms. Bring the socks together, fold the tops and leave them there, next to the soft skin of folded paper: a drawing by the other woman’s child. ...